A brief history of IOB
IOB is the result of the merger of two previously existing smaller development institutes, the College for Developing Countries and the Centre for Development Studies. This bipolar origin can be understood in light of the history of the University of Antwerp. In 1965, in the framework of legislation on ‘university expansion’, two higher institutes of commercial sciences created in 1852, one public, the other run by the Jesuits, were given university status. The fact that RUCA (Rijksuniversitair Centrum Antwerpen) and UFSIA (Universitaire Faculteiten Sint Ignatius Antwerpen) were established side by side rather than as a single university must be understood within the context of Belgium’s pillarised society at the time, where ideological walls separated secular and Catholic communities.
RUCA took over the campus of the former University Institute of Overseas Territories, commonly known as the ‘Colonial University’. Established in 1920 to train colonial administrators, the Colonial University produced around 1,000 graduates in Political and Administrative Sciences, most of whom went on to serve in ‘Belgian Africa’. It was closed in 1962, following the independence of Rwanda and Burundi, shortly after Congo gained independence in 1960. RUCA inherited not only the buildings but also the academic staff. In fact, some of the tenured professors from the Colonial University had remained on the payroll—despite having no teaching duties—since its closure. Reintegrating them into active service was a pragmatic solution.. As a result, the 1965 legislation establishing RUCA included a unique component: a College for Developing Countries. This pragmatic yet costly decision inadvertently laid the foundation for what, nearly 30 years later, would become a flourishing institute for development studies.
After some years of slumber, the College started offering postgraduate courses in Public Finance and Economic Planning in 1972. It concentrated on these teaching programmes and had a very limited research output until the early 1990s, when it realised it had to change course if it was to survive in the longer term. The College was overhauled, hired new staff engaged in research, and developed Master programmes in Public Administration and Development. Outside of the regular funding of RUCA, the College received a core grant from the Ministry of Education that ensured its survival.
For its part, in 1973 UFSIA created a Centre for Development Studies in the Faculty of Applied Economics in response to students’ demands for a university committed to development. It became a department in 1992 and changed names several times. In addition to teaching courses in international trade and division of labour, development studies and political economy in the faculties of Applied Economics and of Political and Social Sciences, its staff mainly focused on research, and was able to develop a recognised capacity in development economics.
During the early 1990s, it became clear that these small institutes, each having a full-time academic staff of under a dozen, could not survive on their own. Though depending from distinct University Colleges, they also realised that having two development institutes in Antwerp was an inefficient luxury. A slow momentum toward integration grew with the gradual emergence of a unified University of Antwerp, starting with the founding of a third University College (UIA: Universitaire Instelling Antwerpen) which was created by a 1971 law which for the first time mentioned a ‘University of Antwerp’. Started as a ‘confederation’ in 1978, it took many years of difficult negotiations to eventually lead to the merger of the three institutions into a truly single university in 2003.
In the meantime, the College for Developing Countries and the Centre for Development Studies were busy uniting without waiting for the university to merge. Staff of the Centre taught courses at the College, common research projects were set up, and a Centre for the Study of the African Great Lakes Region was created as a common venture in early 1994. The organic unification proved difficult and cumbersome, as some staff members preferred the illusory comfort of a small institute above much needed critical mass, while the parent institutions RUCA and UFSIA were not keen on relinquishing their ‘jewels’. A major breakthrough came at the end of the 1990s, when the Flemish Ministry of Education offered to financially encourage a merger and UFSIA committed to continue investing in a new unified structure. Even before the merger of the University of Antwerp, the College and the Centre joined forces to become IOB ('Instituut voor Ontwikkelingsbeleid en -beheer') in 2000. It started effectively functioning in February 2001.
Despite the earlier reluctance of some, IOB rapidly developed a unified corporate culture, and has since become a significant and visible player in the European landscape of development studies. The importance of the merger showed, among others, in the evolution of academic staff numbers. While the combined strength as a result of the merger was 23 full-time members in 2002, this figure stood at 44 in 2014. A benchmark study conducted in late 2014 highlighted that the proportion of IOB researchers exceeding the median publication performance between 2009 and 2013 was the highest among seven leading European development institutes. In terms of education, IOB’s advanced master programmes consistently attract students from over thirty countries each year, while its alumni network spans more than eighty nationalities. Furthermore, strong institutional partnerships thrive in diverse countries such as Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, underscoring IOB’s global reach and influence.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that in this ‘age of assessment,’ the establishment of IOB has been pivotal in securing the future of development studies at the University of Antwerp.